“On our part [Chega] and on my part, as a presidential candidate, I will do everything – and I think we all must do everything – to prevent the Portuguese from participating in a war theater that is foreign to them and where they do not have, so to speak, a geostrategic interest as other countries have,” said the Chega leader in Setúbal.
“If the French are so enthusiastic about this possibility [of sending troops to Ukraine], they have a good path: take their young people, put them there, and then let’s see what happens. Now, getting excited about other people’s youth, that is very easy to do – and the French president is very adept at this – in getting excited about sending others, sending Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, to the front lines. No, since he is excited, send in the French and the French will certainly be able to resolve the situation,” he added.
The presidential candidate André Ventura, speaking to journalists before participating in a street rally in downtown Setúbal, recalled that Chega always maintained that Russia was the invading country and Ukraine the invaded country, and was firm in condemning Russia, a fundamental position that, in the Chega leader’s opinion, all European countries should uphold.
When asked by journalists about the possibility of the November 25 celebrations being mainly by right-wing parties, André Ventura expressed confidence that all parties would participate, except for the PCP.
“I think all parties will be present, except for the PCP, which feels it was defeated on this date, and I understand that. By the PCP, we would never have had November 25; we would have had the establishment of a Soviet-style dictatorship in Portugal, which we fought against and which Setúbal knows very well. And Setúbal, the district where I am today, knows what it is to face communism and to defeat it. We, in fact, won the last legislative elections here and I hope the same can happen in the presidential elections,” recalled André Ventura.
“I hope tomorrow will be a ceremony that unites us all, the far-right, the center-left, and the center-right, because it was the day we truly reclaimed a freedom that was at risk, was at risk in a revolution that had the excesses it did, as all revolutions have, but which had put us all at risk of not having freedom, not having democracy, not having freedom of the press, not having freedom of opinion, not having party freedom, not having freedom of expression,” concluded André Ventura.
